Human ear muscles reveal our emotions. This was discovered by Dr. Farah Corona-Strauss and Sophie Bonnaire, who conduct research at the “Systems Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Unit” in Saarbrücken and Homburg. They were able to show that the ear muscles not only reveal who we are listening to and how intently, but also how deeply something moves us—and they do so within fractions of a second. This finding could have implications for the AI debate and raises the question of what a machine that recognizes emotions better than any human should be allowed to do.
Two publications by the team led by Professor Daniel J. Strauss have been released on this topic: The research findings are presented in “IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing,” and a perspective article in “Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence” defines the term “super-emotional intelligence” for the first time.
“Our ear muscles react immediately to the specific event that moves us emotionally—for example, to a sound or to a face that briefly appears in a scene. This happens in fractions of a second and is not visually perceptible,” says Professor Daniel J. Strauss, explaining his group’s new research findings. What’s remarkable is that Charles Darwin had declared human ear muscles to be vestigial in 1871 and, in 1872, denied that humans express emotions through their ears—a phenomenon he described so precisely in animals: ears laid back during fear and anger, ears pricked up when alert—as anyone who lives with a dog or cat knows.
“However, we have now been able to show that this evolutionary relic in our heads—the control of the ear muscles—not only reveals who we are listening to, but also what we are feeling while doing so,” says the neuroscientist and computer scientist, adding: “Although we can no longer turn our ears, the muscle signal has remained. What Darwin thought was lost has merely become quieter.”
As early as 2020,
his neurotechnology research group had shown in the journal *eLife* that the muscles around the human ear become active as soon as a new or important sound occurs. At that time, the participants unconsciously made tiny ear movements that pointed exactly in the direction toward which they were directing their attention. The researchers were able to demonstrate this, among other things, using electrical impulses from the ear’s rudimentary motor system (see press release “Animal Heritage: Humans, Too, Prick Up Their Ears to Interesting Sounds”). In follow-up studies, the group showed that the ear muscles also indicate how strenuous listening is, even for hearing aid users.
Laughter Leads to New Insights
During the 2020 experiments, Farah Corona-Strauss noticed that the tiny inner ear muscles were active even when the participants laughed—and in fact, shortly before the laughter began. From this, the neurotechnologist developed the following research question: If the ear reacts to sounds that are important to us, does it also react to what moves us emotionally? Together with research assistant Sophie Bonnaire, she investigated this question. Bonnaire took up the topic in her doctoral dissertation at Saarland University and examined it systematically: She showed the participants short film clips—both pleasant and unpleasant—while surface electrodes recorded the activity of the inner ear muscles, and the participants rated how strongly the scene aroused them. Result: “Within fractions of a second, the muscles become more active the more arousing a scene is—regardless of whether the scene was pleasant or unpleasant. And: ‘The muscle response matches what the participants themselves report,’ Sophie Bonnaire found. It is striking that the reaction follows the individual event within fractions of a second: a sound, a face shown briefly, and—in the research group’s current work—even individual words while reading.
Toward “super-emotional intelligence” through bodily signals?
The fact that a person’s ear muscles spontaneously and unconsciously reveal their feelings leads Daniel Strauss directly to the AI debate: “So far, this debate has revolved exclusively around the topic of ‘superintelligence’—that is, the question: How much smarter than us will the machine become?” In contrast, he suggests introducing a new term: “super-emotional intelligence”—a machine that interprets emotions better than any human, including by analyzing body signals that we don’t even perceive in others. “This explicitly does not refer to a machine that feels,” Strauss clarifies. “Rather, super-emotional intelligence describes a system that recognizes, understands, and responds to a person’s emotions better than trained human experts.”
His doctoral student, Sophie Bonnaire, first defined the term “Super-Emotional Intelligence” (SEI) in her perspective article in *Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence*. There, she describes what “super-emotional intelligence” would need to be capable of. She also explains why today’s AI is far from achieving this and how clear rules could be used to build a system that works for people rather than against them. “Unlike today’s ‘empathetic’ chatbots, which appear empathetic without actually tracking the state of their interlocutor, super-emotional intelligence must be able to regulate itself. It chooses an appropriate response that is most likely to help the person sitting across from it reach their desired destination—and it learns from the impact of its own responses,” says the young scientist. Care
Instead of Control: Rules Against Abuse Are Necessary
But caution is warranted: “With a different objective, the same technology can become a ‘hyper-manipulative machine’ that reads states we don’t even notice in ourselves and steers us toward goals we never chose,” emphasizes Daniel Strauss. The “EU AI Act,” which bans emotion recognition in the workplace and in schools, brings this issue to the forefront. “Our research group argues that humans set the goal and determine what such a machine should be allowed to do: It’s about care rather than control.”
From hearing aids to earbuds to smart glasses
Farah Corona-Strauss and her lab are already working on a tangible technical application: “Hearing aids, earbuds, and the temples of smart glasses sit exactly where the signals from the ear muscles originate. This makes the ear the natural interface between humans and machines. That’s why we’re collaborating with hearing aid manufacturers and international technology partners: An empathetic AI system that senses when listening becomes tiring or when something moves us can respond to that—without a camera and without a questionnaire,” explains the neurotechnologist.
Background: The
“Systems Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Unit” (SNNU) is part of the Faculty of Medicine at Saarland University and the Faculty of Engineering at the Saarland University of Applied Sciences. Dr. Farah Corona-Strauss heads the MINDSCAN Lab there, where Sophie Bonnaire also conducts research. The SNNU currently leads a variety of national and international research projects at the intersection of neuroscience, medicine, and technology.
For more information, visit: www.snnu.uni-saarland.de
The two publications:
- Sophie Bonnaire, Mayur J. Bhamborae, Daniel J. Strauss, Farah I. Corona-Strauss: Unraveling Affective States from the Auriculomotor System. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. DOI: 10.1109/taffc.2026.3717435
- Sophie Bonnaire, Farah I. Corona-Strauss, Daniel J. Strauss: The Rise of Super-Emotional Intelligence (Perspective). Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. DOI: 10.3389/frai.2026.1975692